Think about the last time you mailed a physical letter. It's probably been awhile, unless you occasionally drop a line to your grandmother who refuses to purchase a PC. Now think back to the last time you fired off an email. Compare the frequency of the two and, in most cases, you'll find an enormous discrepancy. Turns out the shift towards digital communication is finally taking a toll on the United States Postal Service.

The day had finally arrived; Blockbuster has finally filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Chapter 11 means that the company will have the opportunity to reorganize and rid itself of cumbersome debt. In the filing, Blockbuster listed $1.02 billion in assets, and $1.46 billion in debt. The company expects to be able to reduce its total debt to a mere $125 million.

Blockbuster has been seeing steadily decreasing sales as digital services like Netflix have taken of in recent years. The Dallas-based company has about 3000 stores currently. They are expected to close as many as 1000 of them. After they complete reorganization, Blockbuster will attempt to focus more on digital content delivery. Considering the lateness of this push, they'll have a lot of catching up to do.

The future is unclear for the brick and mortar chain. They have been able to bundle video rental app with some phones as of late, and this could be a possible way to move forward. We'd also like to see a viable competitor to Netflix in the online streaming category. But the worry is that content would become increasingly siloed; exclusive to one company or the other. Do you think Blockbuster can find a place in the market?

Seems like only yesterday that All Points Bulletin hit the mean, crime infested streets. Oh yeah, that's because it basically was. The cops 'n' robbers MMO launched on June 29 of this year, and, well, it had some issues. Not nearly as many issues, however, as its developer Realtime Worlds, who recently put an entire development team on the chopping block and declared bankruptcy.

And now, after failing to attract a buyer, it looks as though All Points Bulletin's gone straight from the cradle into the grave.

“APB has been a fantastic journey, but unfortunately that journey has come to a premature end. Today we are sad to announce that despite everyone’s best efforts to keep the service running; APB is coming to a close. It’s been a pleasure working on APB and with all its players. Together we were building an absolutely amazing game, and for that, we thank you. You guys are awesome!” wrote Realtime Worlds community manager Ben Bateman.

According to anonymous sources, APB's servers will be going dark tomorrow, never to see the light of day again. Which is a real shame, seeing as Realtime Worlds had a pretty solid roadmap in place for how to fix the game. Unfortunately, life's great Game Over screen appeared, and they didn't have enough coins to continue.

Those of you with virtual homes, possessions, and families, let this serve as a cautionary tale for you. They could all be snatched away – just like that! Now shower them with affection. Show them just how much you love them. Huh? You have to go tell your kids a bedtime story? The nerve! Can't they wait? You're in the middle of something important, after all.

In a move that should come as a surprise to absolutely no one, movie rental chain Blockbuster is telling Hollywood studios that it plans for file for bankruptcy next month, The LA Times reports.

Citing "people who have been briefed on the the matter," The LA Times says Blockbuster and its senior debt holders sat down with the six major movie studios last week to discuss "pre-planned" bankruptcy proceedings in mid-September. Blockbuster's goal is use its time in Chapter 11 to restructure mounting debt, which now sits at almost $1 billion.

Blockbuster has already closed almost 1,000 stores just in the last year, and as a result of its restructuring, more closures are coming, perhaps as many as 800, executives said. Once Blockbuster exits bankruptcy -- if it does -- the company sees itself growing through non-retail initiatives, such as expanding the number of Blockbuster-branded kiosks.

Blockbuster earlier this week announced that it would begin offering videogames as part of its DVD by mail subscription model, and there may be more at stake here than simply trying to gain some ground on Netflix.

According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, Blockbuster's financial situation is in shambles. It all started with the company being delisted by the New York Stock Exchange in early July, and since then, Blockbuster was able to get a forbearance agreement to delay a reported $42 million in interest payments, Fudzilla reports.

After all that, it seems Blockbuster will need even more extensions if it's to avoid filing for bankruptcy, though Creditors are reportedly pushing pretty hard for the rental chain to go through with a Chapter 7 filing.

The cold reality is that Blockbuster might simply be running out of both time and options. To date, the company has made a number of moves to try and adapt and remain competitive, including cheap kiosk rentals, introducing videogames to its DVD by mail business, and signing an agreement with Warner Brothers to receive movies a full four weeks before Netflix.

Making money with online video is no easy task, just ask Google. It's king of the hill video sharing service YouTube continues to operate in the red almost 5 years after its initial release, a reality which makes us wonder how anyone without Google's nearly infinite resources could possibly survive in this space. The latest competitor to bite the dust is Veoh, which if you haven't heard of it, was aiming to fill the void of copy protected content that was created when Google purged its archives at the behest of the TV networks a few years back.

The ultimate goal of Veoh was to give users access to major studio content and independent productions, but costly legal battles, primarily with Vivendi's Universal Music Group ended up overwhelming the good intentions of founder Dmitry Shapiro. Veoh had content agreements in place with CBS, ABC, Viacom, MTV, and even ESPN. At its peak the service was hosting almost 28 million users per month, but ultimately was unsustainable. Early investors in the service include some pretty big names such as Walt Disney, Goldman Sachs, Time Warner, Adobe Systems, and even some ex Viacom executives.

On Shapiro's blog he stated the company would file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection in response to the difficult economy, and also due to his ongoing legal woes with Vivendi, but the most likely scenario at this point ends with Veoh liquidating its assets and rejoining the internet ether from which all web 2.0 spawns.

Circuit City has risen from the dead, at least in online form, and as is most often the case when an entity emerges from the grave, decomposition rears its ugly head. In this case, it's the new CircuitCity.com's return policy that has been withered, but more on that in a minute.

Last Tuesday, Systemax -- the same company that owns TigerDirect and purchased electronics retailer CompUSA's intellectual property last year -- closed its agreement to acquire trademarks, domain names, and customer list of email addresses and "other basic customer information" of Circuit City's online business for $14 million plus a share of future revenue over 30 months, CNBC reports.

The online portal relaunches today and it looks just like the Circuit City of old, except for the return policy. Not even a full day under its belt, CircuitCity.com is already catching flak over how returns are processed. Under new ownership, non-defective returns "will be for store credit or refund at CircuitCity.com's sole discretion." But even worse than potentially getting stuck with store credit, some items are just plain nonreturnable.

"Products from manufacturers such as Compaq, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Toshiba, Epson, and others are not returnable to CircuitCity.com FOR ANY REASON," states the return policy.

Someone cue up Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust" and don't stop playing until the memory chip market has been fully weeded out. It was only a week ago that Germany-based chip maker Qimonda became the first major memory chip maker to file for bankruptcy, and now Spansion Japan appears to be on the chopping block as well.

Originally spun off by AMD in 2005 to create flash memory, Spansion now owes just shy of $810 million, making it the biggest bankruptcy filing in Japan's manufacturing sector this year. However, the company maintains that its operations will continue on as normal.

"Spansion Inc. does not expect the filing in Japan to materially affect its global operations," the company said Monday. "Spansion Japan Ltd. will continue its operations and intends to pay, in a timely manner, for all goods and services that it obtains after the date of filing."

How the bankruptcy court decides to proceed remains to be seen, but it would have a number of options available, from letting Spansion continue to operate as it restructures, to full-scale liquidation.

Circuit City announced on Friday that it will close all of its remaining 567 US stores. As a direct result of the retail chain's closure 34,000 people have been rendered jobless.The company had been in talks with a few potential buyers for quite sometime. In fact, the parleys reportedly went beyond midnight Thursday. However, as the discussions bore no fruits Circuit City was left with no other choice but to liquidate itself. Circuit City is currently offering discounts of up to 30% - which might be revised later - as part of its liquidation sale. Cnet’s Brooke Crothers’ described the situation inside the Circuit City store he visited as chaotic.

Blighted electronic retail chain Circuit City is in discussions with several interested buyers, the company’s CEO Jim Marcum revealed to its employees in a letter. He also informed them about the likely course of action for Circuit City, which has filed a motion with the Bankruptcy Court seeking permission “for a process that formally puts the company up for sale.”

Marcum wrote that parleys with interested buyers have been focused on a “going concern” transaction, whereby the buyer will not dismantle Circuit City’s business, but just reorganize it. If the company fails to secure a sales agreement by the 16th, it will have to be liquidated. He asked employees to stay focused on the job at hand and work hard.